Earthen dams are water retaining

structures made up of earthen material like

clays and rocks. They are the most economic
dams on the basis of material. They may be
Small, Medium or Large on the basis of size of
dams. USBR (United Stated Bureau of
Reclamation) defined small dam as one having
maximum height < 15 m (50 ft.).
Small earthen embankment dams are used
worldwide. They may be homogenous, zoned
embankments or Earth cored rock filled Dams
(ECRDs.).
Dams are important engineering
structures. The failure of a dam would mean the
loss of many lives as well as economy. Table 1
shows the failures of dams occurred in the
world along with their causes. About 30% of
the dams failures occurred in the world were
due to foundation defects.
The foundation problems may be Sliding
stability of foundation material, dissolution of
foundation material, liquefaction, differential
settlement/ deformation of foundation material
and/or uncontrolled foundation seepage.
Seepage control is of prime importance in
case of small dams because these dams are
constructed on streams of low discharge and
smaller catchment areas where the availability
of water is minimal. Seepage may occur from
139
Journal of Himalayan Earth Sciences Volume 48, No. 2, 2015 pp.139-147
Table 1. Causes of failure of dams in the world
(Thomas, 1976).
140
dam body, abutments or foundation bed
(Asawa, 2006). To control seepage from the
dam body, the thickness of clay core must be
enough to lower the piezometric line to a safe
level like downstream horizontal drain or toe
drain where the pressure is atmospheric.
Seepage from the abutments can be controlled
using available methods like grouting and
escarpment if the problem exists.
The streams on which small dams are built,
most often have bed rock at a higher depth. The
foundation bed over there is of alluvial material
of pervious nature. In such case the control of
seepage from alluvial bed is of prime
importance. If the bed rock is at shallow depth,
a cut off trench/wall as in Figure 1a is the best
solution (Novak et al., 2007). Grouted cutoffs
and diaphragm cutoff walls as in Figure 2b and
Figure 3c are other solutions to the problem.
For the case when rock is at higher depth,
upstream impervious blanket (Fig. 3d) is the
best choice (ICOLD, 2011). In all afore
mentioned methods, the basic technique is to
increase the seepage path. In the last mentioned
alternative, clay is used as a construction
material for this purpose, due to its economy

and availability.